Fangraphs, which recently started publishing Win Expectancy graphs for each game, now has season totals for WPA. In terms of the Tigers, the WPA measures reinforce what we already know – the pitchers have been carrying the team.

Hitters     -35.7%
Starters    283.6%
Relievers   202.1%

Now the net for the Tigers is +450%. To win a game a team needs 50% of WPA (each team starts at 50%, and the winner of course is at 100%). So the pitchers are essentially responsible for the team being nearly 10 games over .500, while the offense has them almost a game below .500. This makes sense intuitively because the Tigers haven’t won a slugfest yet. The wins have been blowouts, or close low-scoring games. In a low scoring game, it is quite intuitive that the pitchers would carry a larger weight. In a blowout, while it would seem the offense would carry the day, each additional run has diminishing value. Meanwhile, each additional out secured by the pitchers gets the team closer to a win.

The team leader in WPA is Mike Maroth at 107.1%. He’s followed by Fernando Rodney at 90.9%. The top hitter of course his Chris Shelton at 62.8%. Placido Polanco who has hit for a decent average, but has a poor on base and slugging percentage is tops of the anti-leaderboard at -67.9%.